This invention relates to the preparation of a wet load of coal with a bulk density of at least 700 kg/m.sup.3, especially suitable for transport and storage.
It has been proposed to transport coal from the mining site to an area of further use or to harbor facilities for further transport by ship, by crushing it to coal fines, preparing an aqueous slurry of coal fines from the crushed coal and pumping this slurry through a pipeline. One particular advantage of this "wet" route over the transport of dry coal fines is that it does not present severe dust and explosion problems.
In an aqueous slurry of coal fines the latter will remain in suspension while the slurry is pumped through a pipeline. However, if the coal is to be stored or transported by ship, a slurry is not practical because a considerable amount of water is present and the fines will not be kept suspended for any length of time. It will be clear that the storage or transport of water is cumbersome and that the need for reslurrying at the end of the storage or transport interval is not very attractive.
It is possible to store or ship the coal fines in a dry condition. However, as has been mentioned above it is expensive to completely dry the fines and cumbersome to handle the dry dust.